大象传媒

Although I joined the 大象传媒 in 1942, I spent 3 years, from 1944-47, in REME Corp (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) working with radar. I spent some time in both Egypt and Palestine but was also posted in London.

I will remember the date - 14th May 1944. I was staying at a lodging house in Fordwich Road, Willesden in north west London and a colleague, whose name I think was Ray Coles, was in the room next door to mine.
At 2am the air raid sirens sounded. The next thing that I heard was a strange noise. It sounded like a motorcycle driving past, although not one that I could recognise. Coles came into my room to see what was going on and we both looked out of the window. We were confronted by a sight that appeared to be a plane on fire but neither of us was quite sure exactly what it was. Luckily for us it went past where we were as it turned out to be one of the, if not the first German V1 missiles to hit London. I believe that that particular doodlebug went on to hit the Camden area, although I am not absolutely sure. As I say though, at the time we didn't even realise that it was a bomb and it was only later that we found out what we had witnessed.
The blast from the V1's was colossal because, unlike its successor the V2, it didn't bury itself in the ground, but instead caused a lot of surface damage.

It was an extraordinary sight though and one that I shall never forget.

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